


In the woods somewhere

by saintsybil



Category: Outlast (Video Games)
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-16
Updated: 2019-02-16
Packaged: 2019-10-29 19:00:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 917
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17813672
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saintsybil/pseuds/saintsybil
Summary: Blake mistakes a sound in the woods for Lynn.





	In the woods somewhere

**Author's Note:**

> Warning for animal death.
> 
> Also, hello outlast fandom! It's been a while. I may add more to this if i find the motivation.
> 
> I wrote this two summers ago on a flight to my boyfriends graduation party. For the full effect, listen to In The Woods Somewhere by Hozier after.

Blake woke with a jolt, drenched to the bone with sweat. The only sound that filled the room was his panicked wheezing and the rattling of the AC across the room.

 

Two years. It'd been two years since they dragged him out of temple gate, the only survivor from what he still firmly believed was the rapture. He was kicking and screaming, calling for his wife and the baby that was nowhere near his nearly comatose body. A baby that was the only thing left he had of his wife. A baby that didn't exist.

 

Murkoff Co. paid for a house somewhere away from society and therapy sessions so he'd keep his mouth shut. He went to the press anyway. Since that day, he would have the same nightmare nearly every night. Standing alone in the woods, surrounded by the buzzing of flies, as something darker than a shadow stood in front of him in the pitch black of the forest.

 

A nightmare that would prove to be a premonition, as he hears a scream.

 

Loud enough for him to hear from his house on the edge of the forest. Animalistic, full of fear and dread. Lynn. It had to be Lynn. No matter how long it had been, it had to be her. Blake stumbled out of bed, throwing on jeans and running out of his front door. The fever that was still raging in him didn't matter.

 

_Find Lynn. Nothing else matters but Lynn._

 

He followed the screaming, the terrible sound mixing with the crunching of sticks under his boots. Finally, he found the source next to a small stream, now running red. A fox. Its side torn open, writhing and screaming.

 

He didn't know how the call of a vixen could be confused with the scream of his wife. If she was even still alive, she'd be nowhere near where he was, still wandering aimlessly somewhere in Arizona.

 

Blake picks up a rock, the largest he can with how poorly his hands work, and drops it on the fox’s head. The screaming ceases. Her suffering ended.

 

_He wished someone would come by and drop a rock on his own head._

 

This is when Blake begins to worry. To his limited knowledge of wildlife he leaned in boy scouts, this doesn't look like the work of any of the larger animals in the area. Coyotes go for the jugular, and as far as he knew animals never killed for sport. There was a significant amount of fox left, and the thing wasn't even dead.

 

Then he hears it.

 

The buzzing of flies.

 

The memory of the dream shoots through his veins and he can feels eyes on him, quickly looking around in a panic. He has no camera, he has no weapons, if something was here it'd be no match for him.

 

Between two large pines across the stream, he sees two white spots. Six feet or so off the ground, and not the eyes of an animal. An unearthly glow escaping its eyes like luminescent smoke as it emerged from between the trees.

 

A man. He swore he'd seen his face before, even in the dead of night. A layer of what seemed, from afar, to be flies were swarming him, lifting him off the floor slightly. As the man moves towards him, his movements are unnatural. Like a corpse being puppeteered by an ammeter.

 

Blake takes this as his cue to run.

 

He isn't entirely sure where he is in the woods, he was blindly following the screams of what he thought to be his wife, and now he was about as lost as one could get. God, how could he be so stupid? How could he think Lynn was even still alive?

 

The humming of flies only gets louder as Blake finds a path, only to trip on an exposed root, falling square on his hip. He covers his face as the man...creature comes closer. From under his arms he sees it touch the ground. Whoever it is, it's wearing work boots. From the closeness, he can tell just how terrible it smells.

 

It smells dirty, sweaty. A bit like blood, _a smell Blake tries in vain to forget._

 

The thing crouches. Blake is shaking, he doesn't care how stupid he looks.

 

“ _You know._ ” It says. It sounds like 30 voices, a choir that sends fear shooting up his spine. It sounds unnatural. “ _You know._ ” The thing repeats. Every time it speaks the voices seemingly change order.

 

Without thinking, Blake responds.

 

“What do I know?” He sputters, his voice about as shaky as it can get.

 

“ _You've seen the same things._ ” Blake wishes he knew what was talking. The man, or the congregation of flies. Seemingly both.

 

“I don't… I don't know what you mean.” His body feels like it's so rigid it'll break if the thing breathes too hard in his direction.

 

“ _The same things, but far worse._ ” It lifts off the ground and the jerky movements start once again, finally Blake removes his face from his arms, getting a full look at it. A man, definitely a man. And no flies he's ever seen before. Its riddled with bullet holes and is missing some fingers.

 

It turns to leave, and Blake pipes up.

 

“What the… everloving _fuck_ are you?” He spits out, suddenly worried it might attack, just like it did the fox. The man turns, and grins a grin that would send chills through Ted Bundy.

 

“ _An **angel.**_ ”


End file.
